


It Builds Up, Then it Breaks Down

by Dredfulhapiness



Category: Spider-Man (Video Game 2018), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 17:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18627577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dredfulhapiness/pseuds/Dredfulhapiness
Summary: Peter was forced to watch F.E.A.S.T. die slowly. One by one, the infected dropped off and the bodies were cleared away until he was just looking at empty beds in a gym.May had hardly spoken to him.That was three months ago.(Or, the one where Peter chose to save Aunt May)





	It Builds Up, Then it Breaks Down

Peter was forced to watch F.E.A.S.T. die slowly. One by one, the infected dropped off and the bodies were cleared away until he was just looking at empty beds in a gym.

May had hardly spoken to him.

That was three months ago.

“What do you think?” He’d asked MJ when the reports had started coming out. When J. Jonah Jameson had started making sense. 

She’d been quiet. For once, MJ didn’t have an immediate opinion. That made his stomach twist.

“I think you did your best,” she told him. “You did all you could.” 

She excused herself after that, something about work, and he didn’t say anything when she gave him a pitiful smile. He stayed in the booth ( _their_ booth) for another half an hour, avoiding the knowing look from the short line cook.

He turned MJ’s words over in his head, “you did all you could” and it was like he was standing over Otto again, the serum in his hand. A second chance.

_That’s all any of us can do._

He wished, abruptly and out of nowhere, that he could see what the other choice had been. If, maybe, there had been a chance to save everyone-- something he’d forced himself to learn early on wasn’t always an option. 

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t looked. 

The hours-- days-- after saving May had been spent looking for another vial, or using the few drops they’d saved on a slide to recreate it. Peter and Michaels had worked until the last person at F.E.A.S.T. had died, and even then Peter kept working until MJ and Miles had dragged him away. They’d pushed him into May’s office and barricaded the door until he’d caved and passed out on the couch.

He’d dreamt of Ben. 

* * *

 

When Miles revealed himself to Peter, there was a disconnect. Joining him on the ceiling had led to the fall of Miles’s face. Peter understood. He wished he hadn’t. 

That night he’d dreamt of alternate realities. A world where May had died and New York hadn’t plunged into chaos and Miles could still look him in the eyes. He dreamt of time travel and selflessness and when he woke up it was in a cold sweat alone and in the dark. 

The next morning, New York was still struggling to recover. Crews were still cleaning up the rubble from Spider-Man’s fights with Otto (Doctor Octopus, as the news had so aptly nicknamed him). The news was still listing the missing and the dead. Osborn gave a press conference, then another, and the press wrote more articles with updated death tolls, and F.E.A.S.T. still wasn’t open again yet.

* * *

 

“You working on a story?” he asked MJ one night, nearly two weeks after the Devil’s Breath had been released. He had been avoiding patrolling, so he was on her couch instead, watching her stare at her laptop. Actually, he was waiting on a call from Yuri, but one hadn’t come since that day and he had given up hope of hearing from her. At least for now.

“I’m covering Otto’s case,” she said without looking up. He felt like maybe he was supposed to know that, and also like he had already asked her.

He fiddled with the web-shooter he had laid out on the coffee table. He was supposed to be repairing it, but he’d really only turned it over and over again in his hands. “Have you found anything else out?” He asked, “About Harry?”

There were two unspoken rules between them now:

1) Don’t ask about their relationship

2) Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to

“Nothing,” MJ said, and Peter suddenly wondered if he had already asked that, too. “If he wanted us to know anything, we would. He clearly didn’t think it was important enough to tell us.”

Her words stung. She was hurt. “You know how Harry is,” he said sheepishly. “He’s proud. He didn’t want us to know he was hurting.”

MJ made a sound Peter recognized from when they were dating. It was the sound that usually preceded a fight so he pretended to worry he’d left the stove on and left through the fire escape.

* * *

His strained relationship with May was the hardest part. 

“Hey.” He leaned against the railing on the porch of her house in Queens. He held up a bag of Chinese food. “I brought dinner.” 

She looked tired. She’d been working longer hours trying to get F.E.A.S.T. back up and running, mostly by herself. Miles helped when he could but he was just a kid, and now that he’d been bitten… He had work to do for Peter, too.

Peter had already talked to May about his “second job.” After the shocking discovery, they’d found time to sit down. May looked hurt, still. He supposed that was fair. Peter had just traded hundreds of lives for hers. 

For the first time since he’d been bitten, he didn’t need to lie to her. It was a weight off his shoulders to tell her about everything he had done, every mistake he had made, and when he said, “I need to tell you something about Uncle Ben--” she had just put a hand up.

There were some things he would need to take to the grave.

“I was so proud of you,” she said, “when I figured it out. My nephew was the one out there keeping us safe.” And he imagined her watching the news every night, watching the recap of his fights from the blurry CCTV footage while a picture of Ben hung beside the television. It made his chest ache a little bit. 

That conversation hadn’t managed to fix things. She never expressed her unhappiness, but he could feel it. She was colder, sadder.

“I’m one old lady,” she had said to him one day out of nowhere. He was helping her clean up the remnants from the Devil’s Breath patients. “There’s a whole city out there that needs you more.” 

And when he opened his mouth to point out that the city had The Avengers he thought about the responsibility that comes along with power and how this had been an argument he’d had with Tony Stark a long, long time ago. He chose to close his mouth instead of sounding like a teenager.

“I know,” he told her. “But I need you more than that city needed me.”

* * *

 The hiatus he was taking from being Spider-Man was making Peter restless. He tried to focus his energy on finding Harry, but all of his calls went straight to voicemail and his hopes that there was some kind of hint at the research stations was quickly crushed. There wasn’t anything Michaels could tell him that he hadn’t already known.

On more than one occasion he thought about biting the bullet and patrolling, but then the news would come on or he’d hear Jameson say something or another that he couldn’t even argue with and hesitation would set in. Cold and blinding.

“It’s been a month,” MJ said. “When are you getting back out there?”

This was, of course, in reference to the incessant pacing he had been doing around her apartment. Front door to kitchen to bedroom to front door. He was flipping his cell phone as he walked, one headphone in and listening to the police scanner. When MJ spoke, he almost missed catching his phone.

“I’m not sure that I can,” he admitted. 

“So you’re just going to mope around forever?”

She had a point.

“I’m looking for a job. Something less… Evil scientist-y.”

“Who’s going to teach Miles?” She had looked up from her laptop. This was a serious conversation, apparently. Peter swallowed and stopped pacing.

“I can show him the basics,” he said, monitoring his words carefully, “but maybe he shouldn’t be out there. He’s just a kid.” 

“So were you.”

“And look how that turned out.”

MJ sighed and _closed_ her laptop. Uh oh.

“Peter,” she said, and her voice was gentler than he had expected. “You can’t second guess like this. Do you know how many times you’ve saved this city? Do you know how much you’ve sacrificed? Jobs, and time, and hospital bills. Relationships.” He smiled at that, tired. “There was something you weren’t willing to sacrifice. You made that decision, you need to move on. Either you’re Spider-Man or you’re not.”

* * *

 

The city had very mixed reactions when Peter got back to work. But, just like they had in the beginning, they settled down to a simmer. The opposition became those who had lost someone, and J. Jonah Jameson.

When the press tried to ask him a question he told them simply, “I did my best. It’s the best any of us can do.”

* * *

 

 “You need to make sure you look for yourself out there,” Peter said sternly. “This isn’t a game. If you’re in real danger, you get out of there and call me.”

He looked down. So did Miles, and Peter saw him balk at the height. When Peter had first started, this height had been dizzying. Now, he climbed to the top of the empire state building and jumped for fun. Hell, he’d found one of his old backpacks up there just last week.

“Our suits are on a call. I can hear you and you can hear me. But I need you to promise to do what I tell you.” They both watched the robbers load up the truck. Peter hadn’t loved the idea of bringing Miles along with him. These guys had guns and possible murderous intent.

“Do you remember why we broke up?” MJ had asked. “If you don’t show him the ropes he’s just going to go off and do it without telling you. You can’t protect him, but you can teach him how to be safe.”

“Yeah, I promise.” Miles slid his mask on. “What are we waiting for? They’re pulling away.”

“Alright,” Peter said. “Let’s do this,” and both Spider-Men leaped off the side of the building.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this draft for a while, and now is as good a time as ever. The title is from the song Pariah King by The Shins.


End file.
